By Kat Kerlin, UC Davis
Spectacular eruptions at Bárðarbunga volcano in central Iceland have been spewing lava continuously since Aug. 31. Massive amounts of erupting lava are connected to the destruction of supercontinents and dramatic changes in climate and ecosystems.
New research from UC Davis and Aarhus University in Denmark shows that high mantle temperatures miles beneath the Earth’s surface are essential for generating such large amounts of magma. In fact, the scientists found that the Bárðarbunga volcano lies directly above the hottest portion of the North Atlantic mantle plume.
The study, published online Oct. 5 and appearing in the November issue of Nature Geoscience, comes from Charles Lesher, professor of Earth and Planetary Science at UC Davis and a visiting professor at Aarhus University, and his former PhD student, Eric Brown, now a post-doctoral scholar at Aarhus University.
“From time to time the Earth’s mantle belches out huge quantities of magma on a scale unlike anything witnessed in historic times,” Lesher said. “These events provide unique windows into the internal working of our planet.”
Such fiery events have produced large igneous provinces throughout Earth’s history. They are often attributed to upwelling of hot, deeply sourced mantle material, or “mantle plumes.”
Recent models have dismissed the role of mantle plumes in the formation of large igneous provinces, ascribing their origin instead to chemical anomalies in the shallow mantle.
Based on the volcanic record in and around Iceland over the last 56 million years and numerical modeling, Brown and Lesher show that high mantle temperatures are essential for generating the large magma volumes that gave rise to the North Atlantic large igneous provinces bordering Greenland and northern Europe.
Their findings further substantiate the critical role of mantle plumes in forming large igneous provinces.
“Our work offers new tools to constrain the physical and chemical conditions in the mantle responsible for large igneous provinces,” Brown said. “There’s little doubt that the mantle is composed of different types of chemical compounds, but this is not the dominant factor. Rather, locally high mantle temperatures are the key ingredient.”
The research was supported by grants from the US National Science Foundation and by the Niels Bohr Professorship funded by Danish National Research Foundation.
Read the full study at http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ngeo2264.html.
Video: Lava Fountains from Bardarbunga Volcano Holuhraun Fissure Eruption viewed by Helicopter
Well it (Iceland) does sit on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge…. I just hope they aren’t thinking this is something that is going to last for years.
Can anyone give the composition of the volatiles associated with the plumes?
I hope Yellowstone isn’t reading this.
It’s not only Bárðarbunga it is whole of Iceland, the gateway to the the North Atlantic SST multidecadal variability we know as the AMO
Exactly, Iceland sits on a on a hotspot.
All the significant seismic action of late has been centered on the Bardarbunga caldera. The fissure vents are just a sideshow. Spectacular yes, but just a sideshow until the main performance at the caldera.
Seismicity for 25 October 2014.
http://i60.tinypic.com/6ifexs.png
http://i61.tinypic.com/f4l6df.png
The caldera earthquake activity is from steady subsidence, as seen from a tab at the top of the same webpage:
http://en.vedur.is/earthquakes-and-volcanism/gps-measurements/bardarbunga/caldera
Said subsidence has been regular and smooth as the magma drains toward the fissure system, suggesting that a catastrophic caldera collapse isn’t necessarily going to happen, although it certainly still could.
There are a lot of ifs in the equation. The overlying glacier is dropping 20-40cm per day and is 850 meters thick. If/when the rock caldera cap collapses, it will be quite a show. Or not.
When the Laki volcano went off across the island in 1783, it caused several years of very serious climate disruption, according to Wikipedia (I know, I know), some 6 million died from the induced crop failures and sulpher dioxide. What if that happened today?
What if the sun decides to shoot a really big flare at us tomorrow?
I continue to think that the real threats to humanity come from these kind of sudden, drastic and unpredictable black swans, not from gradual and easy to adapt to change. Virtually all of our modern infrastructure and technology has been developed in a golden age of warm weather and few natural disasters. We really have no idea how brittle these systems will be when really stressed.
Mark-o-panam,
Keep the liquor cabinet stocked with a bottle of your best and favorite stuff, is my answer to your Black Swan scenario.
This is not news. this has been known for decades, ever since the concept of mantle plume was coined in 1971, Iceland has been one of them.
Quite right, Hans. For instance the mantle plume underlying Iceland was delineated by 3D modelling of seismic data by a paper published in “Nature” in 1997. But as you say, mantle plumes have been known since the 1970’s.
Exactly.
It goes back even further, in that the mantle plume concept builds on J. Tuzo Wilson’s 1963 work on hotspots.
http://www.mantleplumes.org/WebDocuments/Wilson1963.pdf
Here’s a site which keeps close watch on Icelandic volcanoes http://www.jonfr.com/volcano/
Another site focusing on Iceland, but with a more global view: http://volcanocafe.wordpress.com/
The EPA will shut this CO2 emitting hot spot down…there goes icelands carbon credits.
http://www.writerbeat.com/articles/3713-CO2-Feedback-Loop
Well, you have two other very specific, very well-defined and isolated hot spots:
Yellowstone volcano/volcanic valley/caldera – moving now to the east-northeast in a well-evident curve as the north American land mass moves west across it.
Hawaii island hot spot: Also moving east-southeast as the Pacific crust moves west over it.
Iceland?
My opinion is that it could also be a “lucky” meteor impact crater right on the Mid-Atlantic ridge: The ridge is of course active already and is splitting/spreading in a clear ridge formation at the mid-Atlantic ridge all the way around Africa back to the Horn of Africa. But only at Iceland is a massif building up so high and remaining continuously active so long. The rest of the ridge is almost all underwater with very shallow ocean debris deposit fields.
Could Yellowstone and Hawaii also be meteor crater weak spots below the crust so low but so deep that the moving crust goes across the pin point flaw? At Iceland, the tectonic plates don’t move across the fixed hot spot (flaw or deep impact) but otherwise, Iceland behaves the same as the other two.
Mid-Atlantic Ridge
http://www.esa.int/var/esa/storage/images/esa_multimedia/images/2014/10/atlantic_bed_imprinted_in_gravity/14952329-1-eng-GB/Atlantic_bed_imprinted_in_gravity.jpg
The red dots are volcanoes. Credit: Scripps Institution of Oceanography
(click on the image to enlarge)
My opinion is that it could also be a “lucky” meteor impact crater right on the Mid-Atlantic ridge.
I think it is highly unlikely.
Only area where MAR comes close to a large land mass is Greenland. This in itself should not be very significant, except that Greenland is covered by thick ice layer, which varies on millennial time scale.
the Laurentide ice sheet melting followed by glacial rebound could be the clue: as weight of the Greenland’s ice sheet exerts variable pressure on the crust below the logical ‘relieve’ point would be the nearby MAR fracture, that happened to be Iceland.
I consider that this general area is a critical factor ( as described here ) for the N. Hemisphere’s climate and in particular N. Atlantic’s SST natural variability.
This source reads the red dots are earthquakes.
Regards,
http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_images.jsp?cntn_id=132771&org=NSF
Oh, well another case of the ‘settled science’, source for illustration above is European Space Agency
http://www.esa.int/spaceinimages/Images/2014/10/Atlantic_bed_imprinted_in_gravity
You would have to explain why other large impacts didn’t cause the volcanic activity you postulate. Those spots seem to be fixed and originate very deep, much deeper than an impact fracture and high stress zones. Iceland just seems to be an overactive spot in the mid atlantic ridge.
Now that some people are living so well and have nothing better to do with their time, perhaps a movement will arise to rename these islands … change Greenland to Iceland and Iceland to Volcanoland.
I’m glad that this volcano is doing the Kīlauea routine so far. No big kaboom just pour out lots of lava and make the island bigger. Here’s hoping it continues to vent relatively peacefully.
The lava is not pushing into the ocean, so it’s just making an area higher.
The continuing seismic activity and caldera subsidence at Bárðarbunga could end very badly. Or it could just end. Volcanoes are like that. From http://en.vedur.is/media/jar/Factsheet_Bardarbunga_20141024.pdf :
That’s Vulcanophobic and you should be ashamed of yourself, Volcanoes have been the geography of peace for thousands of years, anyway sedimentary systems have done far worse and are entirely to blame for the occaisional activist Volcano.
CNN Headline: “Volcano Fears Backlash from Tomorrow’s Eruption”
How can you fault an entire geographical feature for the actions of a single hotspot? There’s miles and miles of Iceland which have never once erupted.
OK, maybe they erupted a while ago, killing hundreds, but nothing this week. The graphs are being realigned.
H8ter!
Depends on the size of the fissure eruption. Laki 1783 was also a “peaceful” fissure eruption. As was the Siberian Traps eruptions that caused the largest mass extinction of al 250 million years ago.
I fail to see the significance of the paper. What isn’t blindingly obvious from well understood geology seems to me to be a counter to a strawman argument.
1. is a strawman. It seems to me that plumes can and should correleate with crustal thickness on their own. Indeed, it would be highly significant if plumes and crustal thickness were uncorrelated.
2. Numerical model…. Yipee. Assumption piled on assumption. Not proof. At best a one of many explanation.
3.”We show that subducted crustal material represents less than 10% of mantal source” in the North Atlantic.
STOP THE PRESSES! / sarc.
Given that the last hypothesized subduction any where near what is Iceland today happened no earlier than the late Permian (260 million years ago) in the forming of Pangaea, It is not a surprising finding. Once again, it would have only been news HAD they found high percentages of subducted crustal material in Icelandic magma.
I agree completely with Stephen Rasey. This is a prime example of pointless “me too” research.
If Bárðarbunga is getting its lava directly from a hot plume rather than just a magma chamber, then as postulated, “From time to time the Earth’s mantle belches out huge quantities of magma on a scale unlike anything witnessed in historic times,” Lesher said. “These events provide unique windows into the internal working of our planet.”
Such fiery events have produced large igneous provinces throughout Earth’s history. They are often attributed to upwelling of hot, deeply sourced mantle material, or “mantle plumes.”
We could be in for a long volcanic event. Any strawman will burn instantly as the lava reaches it. Let’s wait.
If the mantle heat is rising, the temperatures of the lower ocean would be affected it would seem. Would this have an effect on the low current out of the Arctic? Anyone have any thoughts about this?
Are you saying that the heat is hiding in the deep ocean? 😉
Last week the current eruption became the largest since Laki. From http://www.jonfr.com/volcano/?p=5165
The Icelandic Met Office reports at http://en.vedur.is/earthquakes-and-volcanism/articles/nr/2947 say the lava field is over 62 km².
A large map is at http://en.vedur.is/media/jar/myndsafn/full/Yfirlitskort_20141023.jpg – I wonder what WordPress will think about it. The fissure is on the left, in the main area, lava has pushed west a bit, but the current flow is all east and northeast.
Isn’t that a bit unusual; for a volcano to sit over a magma hot spot ?
Who knew ?
some here are almost there with their thinking ……the revised view is that most “mantle plumes” are results of antipodal effects of extra- terrestrial impacts.
http://www.mantleplumes.org/WebDocuments/Antip_hot.pdf
“New research from UC Davis and Aarhus University in Denmark shows that high mantle temperatures miles beneath the Earth’s surface are essential for generating such large amounts of magma. In fact, the scientists found that the Bárðarbunga volcano lies directly above the hottest portion of the North Atlantic mantle plume.”
Give me a break! I studied Geology in the 50s and 60s and we already knew this! How in heck do they figure Iceland came into being!! It lies on the northerly end of the Mid-Atlantic ridge that goes N-S down the centre of the entire basin. It was born of volcanoes on the sea floor! Man, I was amazed that our knowledge that the earth was round in Ancient Greece was forgotten and had to be re-discovered in the 15th century!! These guys are making a re-discovery of something well known for possibly centuries. Hey, Icelanders are always out surveying new land added to it.
http://www.athropolis.ca/arctic-facts/fact-volcanoes.htm
Here is a gravity map of the ridges offshore and while looking at it, also remember the “surprise” discovery of sea floor volcanoes toward Svalbard and the activity along and under Greenland ice similar “scientists” made recently – reported here on WUWT. It is just the well-known Mid-Atlantic Ridge activity – nothing surprising or new. The dishonesty of these blatant plagiarists!
http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/HIGP/Faculty/hey/images/Fig.1_Reykjanes_Ridge_1000px.jpg
This article is from 1997:
Pall Einarsson, Bryndis Brandsdottir, Magnus Tumi Gudmundsson,
Helgi Bjornsson, Karl Gronvold and Freysteinn Sigmundsson
Center of the Iceland Hotspot Experiences Volcanic Unrest
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/97EO00237/pdf
@Gary Young Pearse
Iceland happily lies right over the MAR, however, it’s rocks are geochemically distinct from the ridge itself, a fact that hoodwinked lots of geologists for many years. It’s a plume that just happens to coincide over a tectonic spreading ridge (actually a triple junction). Some say (nay I hear you cry) that the impact that caused the plume may even have initiated the ridge formation and the separation of the N American and Eurasian plates.
I’d like to see lots of evidence for this, but I’m not prepared to say nay out of hand. I dislike the impact theory because the ridge is such a neat and long job and with all other impacts in history, I’d expect a buckyball network of ridges not just long, joined ridges around the world. As an engineer (and a geologist), it seems safe to conclude that it began as a tension feature – maybe as the old theory surmised, caused by convection cells in the mantle. The fact that it keeps going (since the Jurassic) is also support for this.
I think what I’m seeing across the sciences is a bit of desperation to discover something as grand as those of the golden age between the Enlightenment and the first half of the 20th century. Technology has enjoyed a golden age but science, not so much. I see scientists horning in on the domaine of engineering because of this – the oxymoron rocket scientist is a classic example and all the silliness on scientists spouting off on renewable energy, carbon sequestration, geoengineering….. when an engineer could have told them these were jokes.
Physics has taken a detour through fantasyland – strings and dark matter, etc. to shore up apparent deficiencies in gravitation in large bodies and quantum mechanics. And modern “settled” climate science is very much a symptom of this unhappiness. CAGW science has been so successful in the quiet years of science, that everyone is jumping on this sparkler, even sociologists, psychologists, poets, film makers hack philosophers, politicians, butchers, bakers and candlestick makers.
The “Quiet Science Era” (I’m moved to capitalize it) has also afflicted the Nobel Committee and academies of science who are putting out prizes and awards willy nilly as if they have a limited shelf life. Failed politicians, a president because he is black, terrorists, an ideologue IPCC, a felonious Gleick awarded actually for breaking the law, a Secretary General of the UN who presided over genocide in Rwanda, the leader of the Ship of Fools who, on a mission to chronicle the melting of the southern continent, got a surprise in being stuck in masses of sea ice and violent blizzards that required two ice breaker and helicopters to come to the rescue….. We have the ” Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science” at the U of NSW in Australia – coined in hopefulness after AGW had gone into remission. Yeah, man, we are definitely in a post something or other.
“Desperation to discover” is right! I’m amazed how much of past research in geology is ignored in recently published papers, particularly from geographers and “climate scientists”. People who don’t do their proper literature research and acknowledge prior workers should be given a boot up the bum!
john karajas October 25, 2014 at 7:50 pm
If that’s true, then geographers have no excuse for it, after Hartshorne’s The Nature of Geography, long a standard in the field, and whose most basic theme was that geographers should take past work into account.
Brilliant! Say it again! Candy to my mind.
An impact is most implausible, I’m afraid.
Sorry, but I can’t get this out of my head…
Bárðar Bárðar
Bárðarbunga
Bárðar Bárðar
Bárðarbunga
[Caldera:] I can’t stop this feeling
Deep inside of me
(From “Hooked On a Feeling” http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=hooked+on+a+feeling )
(Pronounce Bárðarbunga http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=413V0bmjvBg I swear it’s easier than Eyjafjallajökull)
Past nine 48 hour seismic event summaries in the Bardarbunga area:
Notes:
(d) a major increase in activity NE of Askja on 21-23 has subsided. 14 of 23 are more than 24 hrs old. M1.1 largest.
(f) Askja M1.4+ is obtained from the Myvatn map.
(g) There are six quakes at the southern end of the island in what is covered by the Myrdalsjokull Map, the name of another volcano covered by ice. On 21-23 the six are all sub M1.0, but they are growing more frequent and growing in magnitude. 23-25 there are two M1.1 and a third M0.4.
(h) Last night, I made note there were 57 quakes at M3.5 or higher. Tonight there are 41. I went back into my snapshots and filled in a new track for the past two weeks.
The webcams are black again, probably low clouds.
Not much in the news. Eruption still going strong.
Twitter picture: Landsat 8 thermal image from Oct. 24. https://twitter.com/search?q=bardarbunga&src=typd
I’ve been making these tables of two-day activity in previous threads and moving them as they close.
Since this is a fresh Bardarbunga thread, I’ll continue here.
Previous threads with activity postings are:
Oct. 19 thru 24
Oct 5-17
Sep 21 – Oct.3 without tables, haphazard summaries of 3DBulge activity.
Sept 8 – 21
Aug 30 – Sept 7.
[Thank you. .mod]
The M3.5+ count for the past 48 hrs is down to 17 from a peak of 57 two days ago.
Higher mantle temp should mean, over time, higher crust temp, even if localized This in turn will mean higher air/ocean temp over time. Arctic air temp is supposedly up a bit, the north atlantic ocean temp is up a bit. Could all make sense but of course correlation is no causation.
Kevin’s missing heat might now be way down in the mantle. Even though this is the reverse of how he would propose it. But just wait for the next reason for the pause.
The mantle stole it.
There is no mantle plume beneath Iceland. It is a shallow magma pool of unknown provenance. Before building any model based on the assumption of plumes from the deep mantle, it would be wise to check the seismic tomography which indicates the absence of any deep mantle source beneath Iceland.
(Montagner and Ritsema 2001)
The situation is the same for all “mid” ocean ridge locations. Shallow pools. What is interesting is the possibility that volcanism was much higher during earlier non ice age periods of earth history and that some electromagnetic process controls both the ice ages and the magma pools.
The Google maps show the islands of Hawaii are just the latest in a series of peaks that might have been islands, running in a line north west to Midway. The explanation is that the volcanic plume has stayed in position, but the crust has moved NW over the plume as shown by the string of underwater peaks. Works for me. https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?rlz=1C1CHFX_en-GBGB547GB547&espv=2&q=hawaii&bav=on.2,or.r_qf.&bvm=bv.77880786,d.d2s&ion=1&biw=1164&bih=576&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=X&ei=5LRMVM-MGo6V7AaSsYCIAw&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAg&output=classic&dg=oo
“the islands of Hawaii are just the latest in a series of peaks that might have been islands”
There is no doubt that most were islands, since they are now “guyots”, i. e. submarine mountains capped by a plateau of coral limestone, showing that they once went through a stage as atolls, and as high islands before that. Also many endemic lineages of plants and animals in Hawaii are much older than the oldest islands existing today, showing that there has been land in the general area for a long time.
Does nayone have nay values for how much heat an eruption of this type can put in to the atmosphere?
Surely it must change “local” climate quite a bit?
Yes, but only over a fairly small area, most of the heat convects up and away from the area.
To get an idea of the numbers: this eruption has erupted c. 0.8 cubic kilometers of basaltic magma in about 50 days. If we plug in the numbers for the density, specific heat and enthalpy of crystallization of lava and assume that it has on average cooled about 1,000 K the average heat emission would be on the order of 10^12 W. That’s a lot of heat, but it is only equal to the average solar insolation over an area of 3,000 square kilometers, so the heat from even a very large eruption (which this is in terms of erupted volume (and heat)) is fairly minor. The effects of the emission of dust and gasses are far more important, but up until now this has been a very “peaceful” eruption.
FWIW, back in 1964 (or 1968), the two times that I visited Iceland and read up a bit on the place, I was informed that a third of all the lava that has ever appeared on earth has come to the surface in Iceland. Truly an unusual country!
When I was there in 1968, IIRC, I flew to Vestmannaeyjar (Westmann Islands)to watch the eruption of Surtsey . However, reference to the internet tells me that volcanic eruptions on Surtsey stopped in 1967, so now I am wondering what I had seen. It was more than 40 years ago, so I don’t remember the details. (Before leaving for Vestmannaeyjar I had asked what I would see. “Drunken Icelanders” I was told. I saw both the eruption and the Icelanders. They have a good time.) I got bored and returned to Reykjavik.
This posting got me interested again in vocanos and I watched https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sRw_e5RA34. There are many other videos available there and one could spend a lot of time watching them.
One question unanswered is whether the lava was “a-a” or “pa-hoe-hoe” type. I think the explosive type shown was the latter and that it later settled into the former.
A person I met during my travels said that he has much respect for sharks and volcanos because they show us how powerless man really is.
Jottings of an addled mind.
Ian M
Any body have any idea. What the white ball of matter was.
The white object descended from the cloud level to ground level.
All this occurred at 2min 24 sec. of the video.
Seemed to splash on the ground, I do not think it originated from of world?
It was far in the background and did not seem to originate from the eruption.
Enquiring minds want to know.
Just looked again and do you know what?
That section of the video has gone….
Must have not saw what I seen.
Well that is strange the PDF I saved of the event has gone missing.
Good job I did a screen grab.
Otherwise I would think I was seeing things.
Oh! well Chalk this up to experience.
Should not see things I should not.
Talk about seeing thing.
Check out from 2min14sec to 2min 22sec.
I am saying nothing I have learnt my lesson.
The first time I learned about hot-spots and mantle plumes in addition to subduction zones and spreading ridges was in a 101 Geology class in 1978. Since then much more research and debate has gone into the hot-spot and plume reference frame for relative and absolute plate motions. An recent reference is a paper JGR 2012 http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2011JB009072/abstract.
I’ve always thought that Iceland is a bit of the Mid Atlantic Ridge that has grown to be above sea level as the ocean floor continues to spread. Wasn’t it Surtsey [sp] that appeared above sea level back in 1964? Maybe the current activity is a stage in further growth. Give it time, and maybe the whole Atlantic will “fill up” with new rock from the mantle and create another whole continent. Mind you, it’ll probably take 200 million years or so. Just a thought.
Hawaii has lava flowing and destroying property. Local residents are evacuating.
I’ll just say this. I’d rather have scientists, even if rediscovering or confirming prior science, working on anything other than climate science at this point. I wouldn’t pour so much h8t on ’em. At least these are not crying about the carbon footprint of this volcano oh my oh my. Yet, anyway.
At Bardarbunga:
Aside from two M5.3 quakes at the crater, it is much quieter than 4 days ago near Bardarbunga, but there is a jump in activity in southern Iceland and a Mag 3.8 offshore SW on the Reykjanes Ridge.
Past nine 48 hour seismic event summaries in the Bardarbunga area:
Notes:
Reykjanes ridge had a M3.8 with 4 others above M2.0
Myrdalsjokull (S. iceland), Mag 2.7, 2.3, and 3 others above 1.0.
The webcams are still black for me, but someone snapped a twitter pic just before the clouds/fog rolled in.https://twitter.com/NJSnowFan/status/526922218270633984
News:
Over 200 Earthquakes in Bárðarbunga over Weekend
World Premier of Drone Video on Tuesday Night
The M3.5+ count for the past 48 hours is 23.
There are 9 in the M4.0-5.0 and one M5.1
18 quakes on the Myvatn map (Askja), max M1.4.
West of Bard has little activity, but one M3.8 at 3 km.
Myrdalsjokull (M1.0+) 5, Max 1.5.
There is an interesting geological cross-section N-S through the Bardarbunga crater showing subsidence at various times over the past 2 months with a 2011 base line.
Total subsidence of the surface is about 25 meters. But the ice plug in the existing crater is 600-800 meters thick. Even the bottom chart has large vertical exaggeration. http://jardvis.hi.is/maelingar_siginu_i_bardarbungu_med_flugvel_isavia_tf_fms_24_oktober_2014
IcelandView.com “Eruption Journey: Video Round trip to Hell”
It is worth its three minutes. There are may be 10 seconds of great aerial video.
But you won’t miss much if you don’t see it.
Past nine 48 hour seismic event summaries in the Bardarbunga area:
Askja maximum is M1.8.
“Geothermal heat continues to increase in Bárðarbunga. Scientists on a surveillance flight above the volcano yesterday could clearly see cauldrons that had formed in the glacier on the western and southeastern rim of the caldera, ruv.is reports.” – More Earthquakes in Bárðarbunga, Heat Increases
Mashable: So, remember that volcano in Iceland? It’s still erupting like crazySome good photos and a video link.
The Webcam #2 is alive and bright tonight.
Facebook photo of screen shot
M3.5+ count past 48 hours is 21.
For the past 24 hours it is only 8.
Nothing bigger than M1.0 near Askja.
Nothing offshore
Nothing significant at the other parts of the island.
The Webcams are blacked out.
There is a ground level and helicopter video of the eruption byDaniel Haußmann I rate it 2.5/5 stars; not bad but a long way from the best that is out there.
There is another video shot from a small plane on mbl.is, “Holuhraun lava-field seen from the air.” that rates 1/2 a star.
Past nine 48 hour seismic event summaries in the Bardarbunga area:
Very quiet seismically at the fissure. Only 6 small quakes in past 48 hrs and none in past 24. Makes you wonder if the equipment is on.
Reykjanes Ridge: The only sig. activity outside of Bardarbunga: A Mag 3.3 and a dozen M1.0-M3.0 aftershocks. Tight cluster.
News: Geothermal Heat at Bardarbunga Melts Glacier at the rate of about 2 m^3/sec. That is about 80 cubic feet / sec, only a small part of the stream flow. My problem is how do they know how much is being melted inside the caldera if it doesn’t leak out? How big could the melt-water lake be at the base of what’s left of the 800 meter thick ice plug?
Total subsidence in caldera is 42 meters. Science advisory board sees no changes in the situation.
Very interesting activity plot today:
There is a 5.3 and a 5.2. Not at all unusual. They are shallow at 2 km.
M4.0-5.0 count is 12; high side of normal
M3.5+ has 22, not much different than the last week.
What is unusual is that there are ZERO quakes in the range M2.0 and 3.5.
Also, there are no quakes of any size in the past 48 hrs at the fissure or NE. of Askja.
There is some activity N and W of Bardarbunga.
http://en.vedur.is/photos/jarvatj_rit/141101_2335.png
So the big quake activity continues in the crater, but minor quake activity is down and the fissure is seismically quiet.
The web cams are black.
No news except for concern over SO2 and Sulfate levels.
It is currently releasing 35,000 tons of SO2 per day.
Meant to attach the map
http://en.vedur.is/photos/jarvatj/141102_0015.png
Past nine 48 hour seismic event summaries in the Bardarbunga area:
While the number of M3.5+ quakes is about steady, their mean magnitude is increasing. These past two days has an unusual number of M4.0-5.0 quakes.They are all in the Bardarbunga crater. Furthermore, they are concentrated in the northern portion of the crater and all are above 10 km.The area of the seismic activity at the crater has not grown; the M3.0+ quakes have concentrated. The sub M3.0 quakes in the south of the crater swarm are in the same place as M3.0+ quakes we saw Oct 23-24.
N.Atl Offshore: 2 sub 3.0 quakes on Reykjanes Ridge
News:Icelandreview.com
The eruption in Holuhraun is still active, but Iceland Met says the underground magma flow seems to be minimal.
More than 20 earthquakes of magnitude greater than four have occurred in the past three days, the biggest on Friday which measured 5.2. All are to the northeast of Bárðarbunga.
Webcams are black.
Tonight the webcams are on. Webcam #2 looks dim, but I think the camera is zoomed back.
Seismic activity at the fissue is back with 17 events in the past 48 hrs. Largest is M1.4 at 15km.
There are also 7 quakes at Askja, but all below M1.0.
There is one M2.0 at Mýrdalsjökull (S. Iceland).
Nothing special offshore.
News: Icelandreview.com
Past nine 48 hour seismic event summaries in the Bardarbunga area:
The Bardarbunga #2 webcam is bright tonight.
News: Picture from high altitude of the lava field in a field of snow. Source: icelandmag.com
M3.5+ Count is 13, the lowest since Oct. 20.
No quakes above 5.0 for the past 4 days.
Webcams are black tonight, but they were visible at dusk (you could see the black lava flow in a field of snow.)
News is about air pollution.
An oblique aerial picture along the lava front toward the fissure. (h/t Twitter: Oliver_Dogot)
http://40.media.tumblr.com/6f9014ba416c696b506031b07e736f82/tumblr_nc5rscVZFk1s5cyzso1_1280.jpg
Past nine 48 hour seismic event summaries in the Bardarbunga area:
Around October 22-24 there were 57 quakes that were Mag 3.5 or larger in a 48 hour period.
Two weeks later, it is down to the low teens.
The Bardarbunga #2 webcam is black. With snow falling, there is much steam rising from the lavafield.
Past nine 48 hour seismic event summaries in the Bardarbunga area:
Much activity NE of Askja (one at M2.3, six M1.5-M1.9, 24 from M1.0 – M1.4),
According to the 3DBulge, most are in a tight pipe from 10 km to 3 km
at an old coneLat/Lon: 65.18 N 16.3 W
One M1.6 @ 4 km at Askja.
The Bardarbunga #2 webcam black. News is flow is unchanged.
Two twitter pics of note: Northern Lights and Bardarbungahttps://twitter.com/GudrunTh/status/531038218243031040/photo/1Northern Lights, Bardarbunga, MilkyWay
https://twitter.com/walletheapp/status/531195098370179072/photo/1